Daly

The Dodgers are trying to persuade Commissioner Bud Selig to overturn a five-game suspension ordered against Gary Sheffield for his role in a May 16 melee at Wrigley Field in Chicago, baseball sources said Tuesday. Chairman Bob Daly has increased his efforts lobbying in support of the all-star left fielder, who is scheduled to have his second appeal hearing at Milwaukee on Aug. 29.

Moving to avert speculation about the status of General Manager Dan Evans and Manager Jim Tracy, a high-ranking Dodger executive Wednesday reaffirmed that the organization supports its top baseball-operations officials, under fire during the team's worst slide since 1995. Speaking on behalf of Chairman Bob Daly and President Bob Graziano, Derrick Hall, senior vice president, said management believes in Evans and Tracy and is united behind them during a difficult time for the Dodgers.

Spain's capital will dedicate a square to Salvador Dali, the 81-year-old master of surrealism, Mayor Enrique Tierno said Tuesday. Tierno told reporters that Dali designed the plans himself for the square, in central Madrid.

I am compelled to respond to Christopher Knight's myopic and absurdly pretentious review of Salvador Dali ["Method to his Madness," March 19], in which the artist is called a "gifted but secondary figure" and generally dismissed as a charlatan whose talent far exceeds his depth. Knight attempts to measure Dali using a dubious sort of Postmodern/Poststructuralist critique in the vein of someone who has just completed his midterm paper on Derrida. The result is a nearsighted portrait that does grave injustice to the artist's work, vision and intellect.

A unique backdrop painted by the late Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali for Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 thriller "Spellbound" will be auctioned May 20 in what figures to be the largest West Coast sale of Hollywood memorabilia in two decades. L.A.'s Camden House Auctioneers--which expects to get $20,000 to $40,000 for Dali's 17-by-55-foot muslin canvas backdrop--will hold the event at the Wilshire-Ebell Theater, with a public preview scheduled for May 19. The colorful Dali piece, used for a dream sequence, features red eyeballs floating in a black sky and is believed to be the artist's only contribution to Hollywood.

Surrealist artist Salvador Dali, back home in northern Spain after being seriously burned last fall, was quoted as saying that all great works of art had been achieved under royal patronage. In an interview with the Barcelona daily Avui, Dali said: "I am an avowed monarchist. Nothing of importance has ever been done under a republic." He added: "The bourgeoisie is the worst thing there is. It is revolting. Spain was lucky to have its monarchs."

Seeing the photo of Salvador Dali ["In Spain, the Complete Dali," May 15] reminded me of an old saying: "It is better to be good than bad and sane than mad." You have to see one of Dali's paintings in person to appreciate his artistic genius -- whether he was mad or not. Robert H. Williams Monterey Park My husband and I were in Barcelona recently and planning a trip to the Dali Museum in Figueres. On our second day, my purse, which was strapped around my neck, was yanked until the strap broke.

An exhibition of Salvador Dali's art in Helsinki, Finland, was canceled as police stepped in to confiscate the works, several of which they suspected to be counterfeit. Collectors who had bought Dali's print works at the exhibition had suspected them to be fake and notified the police, which prompted an investigation, police said Tuesday. All of the roughly 400 works displayed are under investigation.

When I read about the death of Dali, I remembered a happening in connection with him, which I believe occurred in 1947. Ernst van Leyden, a Dutch painter, lived in a house on Barrington Avenue. His property included a big barn and stables. My son Albert, 10 at the time, kept a horse and several sheep there. Van Leyden called me in West Los Angeles one morning, asking whether my son would rent two of his sheep to Dali the next day. Dali offered to pay $10 and Albert readily agreed, provided no harm should come to the sheep.

Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali was transferred to a Barcelona clinic Monday with suspected pneumonia and a worsening heart condition, hospital officials said. A Quiron Clinic spokeswoman said the 84-year-old Dali was being examined by doctors in the intensive care unit. Dali had been admitted to the hospital in his hometown of Figueras, 60 miles north of Barcelona, on Sunday.